Valdez Crude Oil Terminal

Construction of the crude oil terminal in the mid-to-late 1970s included large containment dikes designed to protect the facility in the event of a storage tank failure and potential oil spill. A key factor in selecting Reinforced Earth® mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls for the containment structures was their ability to provide reliable performance under significant seismic loading.

Alyeska’s seismic design criteria for the Valdez area required that critical structures be capable of withstanding an earthquake of magnitude 8.5 on the Richter scale, with associated ground acceleration of 0.6g and a duration of 50 seconds.

The project incorporated approximately 124,000 square feet of Reinforced Earth MSE walls, making it one of Geoquest’s largest projects in the United States at the time and one of the first Geoquest projects in the state of Alaska.